th year of his
age, Theodoric was reluctantly yielded by his father to the public
interest, as the pledge of an alliance which Leo, emperor of the East,
had consented to purchase by an annual subsidy of three hundred pounds
of gold. The royal hostage was educated at Constantinople with care and
tenderness. His body was formed to all the exercises of war, his mind
was expanded by the habits of liberal conversation; he frequented the
schools of the most skilful masters; but he disdained or neglected
the arts of Greece, and so ignorant did he always remain of the first
elements of science, that a rude mark was contrived to represent
the signature of the illiterate king of Italy. [3] As soon as he had
attained the age of eighteen, he was restored to the wishes of
the Ostrogoths, whom the emperor aspired to gain by liberality and
confidence. Walamir had fallen in battle; the youngest of the brothers,
Widimir, had led away into Italy and Gaul an army of Barbarians, and the
whole nation acknowledged for their king the father of Theodoric. His
ferocious subjects admired the strength and stature of their young
prince; [4] and he soon convinced them that he had not degenerated from
the valor of his ancestors. At the head of six thousand volunteers, he
secretly left the camp in quest of adventures, descended the Danube as
far as Singidunum, or Belgrade, and soon returned to his father with
the spoils of a Sarmatian king whom he had vanquished and slain. Such
triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible
Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of clothing and
food. They unanimously resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments,
and boldly to advance into the warm and wealthy neighborhood of the
Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many
bands of confederate Goths. After proving, by some acts of hostility,
that they could be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the
Ostrogoths sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity,
accepted a donative of lands and money, and were intrusted with the
defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who
succeeded after his father's death to the hereditary throne of the
Amali. [5]

[Footnote 1: Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 13, 14, p. 629, 630, edit.
Grot.) has drawn the pedigree of Theodoric from Gapt, one of the Anses
or Demigods, who lived about the time of Domitian. Cassiodorus, the
first who cel